Current trends in Humanities/Masters’ Academy 05.06.2024 ; 3 p.m.
24 05 2024
The Masters’ School Seminar/ Masters’ Academy will be held on June, 05, at 3 p.m.
Our guest is Dr. Alexandros Tsakos.
Decolonizing Nubian Studies
My nomination by PhD candidates in the Department of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw for one of its master seminars this semester is an excellent opportunity for me to look back at the years I spent in the field in Sudan as an archaeologist, museum curator, cultural agent, and tourist guide. My recollections will offer insights into current trends in Sudan archaeology and situate the field in the debate about decolonizing Nubian studies and other disciplines in the humanities. Nubian studies have been characterized by a focus on archaeology, first in Egypt and then in Sudan, primarily as a result of salvage projects due to the construction of multiple dams in the region. Particularly the Aswan High Dam Campaign, which played a foundational role in the development of Nubian studies, has recently been revisited as a colonizing project. In this vein, in his keynote speech at the latest International Conference for Nubian Studies in Warsaw, Vincent van Gerven Oei exposed the colonial context in which archaeology has been conducted on both sides of the border between Egypt and Sudan. Today, this context has taken a different form, with the international community and regional actors betting on the outcome of the ongoing war in Sudan—a war that is devastating life and monuments in the country, calling for contemplation of the role that everyone involved in Nubian studies and Sudan archaeology must assume. This seminar will provide an opportunity to reflect on these topics, aiming to increase the participants’ awareness of the ethics of work that they should embrace in their future careers.
BIO: Alexandros Tsakos studied history and archaeology in Greece and did his Master on ancient polytheisms in Belgium. He has worked as a field archaeologist in Greece, Syria and Sudan. Alexandros lived in Sudan between 2003 and 2008, where he organized the Greek Cultural Center “Ergamenis” in Khartoum. He has led the renovation of the Museum at Jebel Barkal, and he was the contractor of UNESCO for the rehabilitation of the Permanent Exhibition of Medieval Antiquities in the Sudan National Museum. He has published several articles on Medieval inscriptions from Nubia, one of which concerns the Christian inscriptions from Sai, the second largest island on the Nile where he has directed three field seasons of the Medieval Sai Project. Alexandros defended his Ph.D. thesis at Humboldt University, Berlin in February 2013. The title is “The Greek Manuscripts on Parchment Discovered at Site SR022.A in the Fourth Cataract Region, North Sudan”. Between 2014 and 2018, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bergen with a project on “Religious Literacy in Christian Nubia”. Apart from the material from Sur Island, the data basis for this research consisted of the textual record discovered at the sites of Qasr el Wizz (to be published in the Oriental Institute of Chicago Nubian Expedition monograph series, vol. 15), Serra East (to be published in the Oriental Institute of Chicago Nubian Expedition monograph series, vols 12 and 13), Attiri Island (published in 2016 as the first monograph of the Nubiological journal Dotawo), and sites of the Alwan kingdom with extensive textual sets in the form of graffiti (in collaboration with Corenlia Kleinitz from Humboldt University, Berlin). He has co-edited four collections of articles on different topics of Nubian and Sudan Studies, and has received several grants for the organization of workshops and seminars in Norway and Greece. He has been invited to give lectures in Norway, Greece, France, Austria, and Germany. Since 2014, he is responsible for the field of Sudan History and South Sudan History in the online Great Norwegian Encyclopedia. Since 2018 he is the editing manager of the Nubiological journal Dotawo. Since September 2018, he is the Academic Manager of the Manuscripts and Rare Books Collection at the Special Collections of the University of Bergen library, one of the most important repositories of Arabic manuscripts from Sudan.